Inefficient policies and incumbency advantage

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hodler, Roland; Loertscher, Simon; Rohner, Dominic
• 署名单位: University of Melbourne; University of Zurich
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2010.05.002
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 761-767
• 关键词: Elections; incumbency advantage; Political economics

摘要

We present a model of (re)elections in which an incumbency advantage arises because the incumbent can manipulate issue salience by choosing inefficient policies in the policy dimension in which he is the stronger candidate. The voters are uncertain about the state of the world and the incumbent's choice of policy. Under complete information they would reelect the incumbent if and only if the state is sufficiently high. Undesirable policy outcomes may be due to either a bad state or the incumbent's choice of inefficient policies. The incumbent uses inefficient policies in intermediate states, whereby he creates uncertainty about the true state in such a way that voters are better off in expectation reelecting him. Hence the equilibrium exhibits an incumbency advantage that stems from asymmetric information and the use of inefficient policies. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.